Some financial transaction devices, such as credit cards and loyalty program cards, are capable of accessing information related to multiple accounts. For example, a credit card may be able to access membership data associated with both a credit card account and a wholesale purchase club account. These financial transaction devices may generally include one or more applications for selecting and then securely utilizing a sub-set of specified account information. For example, the selecta-card system disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 6,685,088 issued Feb. 3, 2004 to Royer, et al., discloses a method which provides a means to use a single transaction card to facilitate transactions with a variety of transaction account devices. Accordingly, multiple accounts are associated with a selecta-card by pre-selected account identification numbers. To facilitate a transaction with a selecta-card, a cardholder enrolls in a selecta-card account system, providing account identification numbers corresponding to desired cardholder-identified transaction accounts. When making a purchase, the cardholder swipes the selecta-card through a remote terminal such as a POS device, wherein the selecta-card number is read and communicated to a selecta-card provider. To choose which transaction account to use for the purchase, the cardholder inputs an account identification number corresponding to a pre-defined transaction account, the selecta-card provider retrieves the corresponding transaction account and processes cardholder transaction request accordingly.
However, the systems associated with these cards typically delegate the loading of these applications and management of the related data sets to third parties on behalf of both the issuer of the device and “application tenants” residing on the issuer's financial transaction devices. Managing data associated with a credit card via the issuer/third party may involve time consuming steps such as requesting permission to manage data, conforming to data standard formats, and implementing changes. Thus, traditional solutions for managing multiple application tenants are disadvantageous in that the traditional solutions leave a disproportional burden on the issuer and/or the delegated third party in terms of managing accounts on a financial transaction device.
Another disadvantage is that, in general, the financial transaction devices, which are capable of accessing information related to multiple accounts, are typically designed to access only those multiple accounts managed by the same issuer. That is, in some cases, the issuer may employ access prevention protocol to prevent access to the information from those not authorized, and to permit access to those persons who have the two accounts issued by the same user. For example, the same issuer provides both the credit card and the wholesale purchase club account to the user. As such, the issuer providing both accounts generally establishes its own application tenant storage format and management protocol related to the accounts. The established format and protocol is ordinarily different from any format or protocol used by other unrelated issuers, which provides the issuer increased control over access to the account data. Because of the differing unique protocols/formats amongst issuers, multiple issuers typically provide a transaction device corresponding to an account offered by the issuer, where the data for accessing the account is stored in that issuer's protocol/format. Thus, a user wishing to access multiple accounts managed by different issuers, must ordinarily carry at least one transaction device per issuer. Carrying multiple transaction devices can be inconvenient in that the devices may be more easily misplaced, lost or stolen preventing the user from accessing the account.
Still another disadvantage is that a user having multiple transaction devices ordinarily must store the devices in a purse or wallet. This often results in a purse or wallet that is bulky, a nuisance to manage, and also unattractive. As such, the devices may typically suffer from non-use, since the user may remove many of the devices to preserve the shape or aesthetic appearance of the wallet.
Yet another disadvantage of the above conventional methods of managing multiple accounts, which is related to the different issuer formats/protocols, is that, since conventional financial transaction devices typically only store application tenant information related to one issuer, the information may not be recognized by the transaction processing system managed by a second issuer distinct from the first. That is, the user of the financial transaction device typically is only able to use the financial transaction device at locations identified by the issuer or acquirer of the transaction card. The financial transaction device may not be used at any other locations, since the locations not identified by the issuer will not recognize the application tenant information which is typically stored on the device in an issuer determined format. As such, in order to access multiple accounts managed by different issuers using different formats/protocols, the user must typically carry multiple cards, as noted above.
In addition to the above, the conventional multiple account management systems have another disadvantage in that data contained on the financial transaction devices may not be easily updated. That is, traditional financial transaction devices are only “readable” devices, and not “writeable” devices, where the data on the device may be read from the device but not written to the device. More particularly, once the financial device is issued to the user, the data often may not be modified. Instead, where information contained on the device is to be modified, a new physical consumer device (e.g., transaction device) often needs to be issued. That is, the information stored on the financial transaction devices is typically not permitted to be changed without issuer involvement. The issuer may be involved, for example, by verifying compatibility of proposed new or updated information, checking conformance of the data to the issuer's standard formatting and size guidelines, and implementing the changes. Thus, additional burdens are often placed on the issuer where it is desired to add unique data sets to a financial transaction device, or to update the data stored thereon. Further, although traditional devices employing magnetic stripe may be written to, such that data thereon is altered or updated, the read/write devices necessary to alter the data are expensive and often cost prohibitive.
As such, storing sufficient data on a single financial transaction device, which permits a user of the single device to complete transactions using multiple transaction accounts issued by different distinct issuers, does not exist. A need exists for a single financial transaction device, which stores multiple independent data sets provided by multiple distinct issuers irrespective of the format/protocol of the various issuers.